Today's Liberal News

“They Were So Close”: Israel Kills Medics Trying to Save Dying 6-Year-Old Hind Rajab

We look at the case of Hind Rajab, the 6-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza whose case reverberated around the world when audio of her pleading for emergency workers to save her was published online. Her body was found two weeks later alongside those of her aunt, uncle and three cousins. The bodies of two Palestine Red Crescent paramedics, also missing since they had been dispatched to rescue her, were located in their ambulance just yards away. All had been killed by Israeli fire.

Nine Stories to Read Today

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Spend time with nine great recent stories, selected by our editors. Then explore some presidential history from the Atlantic archives.

Russian Dissident Alexei Navalny Dies in Arctic Prison; “No Doubt” He Was Killed, Says Masha Gessen

More than 400 people have reportedly been detained in Russia for publicly mourning the death of Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony on Friday at age 47. He was the most prominent critic of Vladimir Putin in Russia and was serving a 19-year sentence at the time of his death on “extremism” charges. U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders directly have blamed Putin for Navalny’s death.

Something’s Fishy About the ‘Migrant Crisis’

When the mayor of New York, of all places, warned that a recent influx of asylum seekers would destroy his city, something didn’t add up.
“I said it last year when we had 15,000, and I’m telling you now at 110,000. The city we knew, we’re about to lose,” Eric Adams urged in September. By the end of the year, more than 150,000 migrants had arrived. Still, the mayor’s apocalyptic prediction didn’t square with New York’s past experience.

“They Were So Close”: Israel Kills Medics Trying to Save Dying 6-Year-Old Hind Rajab

We look at the case of Hind Rajab, the 6-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza whose case reverberated around the world when audio of her pleading for emergency workers to save her was published online. Her body was found two weeks later alongside those of her aunt, uncle and three cousins. The bodies of two Palestine Red Crescent paramedics, also missing since they had been dispatched to rescue her, were located in their ambulance just yards away. All had been killed by Israeli fire.

Australian Parliament Calls for U.S. to Drop Case Against WikiLeaks’ Assange Ahead of U.K. Court Hearing

Imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to find out next week whether he has exhausted opportunities to avoid extradition to the United States, where he faces life in prison for publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. A two-day hearing before the British High Court of Justice is scheduled to take place in London on Tuesday and Wednesday. He has been held in London’s infamous Belmarsh Prison since 2019 awaiting his possible extradition.

“I Died That Day in Parkland”: Shotline Uses AI-Generated Voices of Gun Victims to Call Congress

The shooting in Kansas City on Wednesday came on the sixth anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school massacre that left 17 dead and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. To mark the anniversary, gun control advocates have launched a project called “The Shotline,” which calls lawmakers with AI-generated audio messages that feature the voices of gun violence victims, pushing them to pass stricter gun control laws and prevent future tragedies.

“Uniquely American Hell”: Kansas City Shooting Highlights Missouri’s Pro-Gun Laws in “Pro-Life” State

In the first 46 days of 2024, there have been 49 mass shootings in the United States — over one per day. In total, almost 5,000 people have died from gun violence this year, including Elizabeth “Lisa” Lopez-Galvan, a radio host and mother of two who was shot and killed Wednesday at a rally held after the Super Bowl victory parade in Kansas City, Missouri. Twenty-two others were wounded, many of them children, when the shooting broke out near the end of the rally.

Step Aside, Fani Willis

After a two-day hearing in Fulton County, Georgia, we are where we were before. The defendants, charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election, attempted to make a case for her disqualification under Georgia law. In my view, they failed. The standard for disqualification has not been met, and the judge should not disqualify Willis.
But that is not the end of it.

The GOP Has Crossed an Ominous Threshold on Foreign Policy

The long decline of the Republican Party’s internationalist wing may have reached a tipping point.
Since Donald Trump emerged as the GOP’s dominant figure in 2016, he has championed an isolationist and nationalist agenda that is dubious of international alliances, scornful of free trade, and hostile to not only illegal but also legal immigration.

The Loneliness of Jodie Foster

Photographs by Daniel Jack Lyons
Jodie Foster has spent much of her career playing the lonely woman under pressure. A young FBI agent-in-training having an underground tête-à-tête with a cannibalistic serial killer. A scientist launching into space, solo. A mild-mannered radio host who becomes a vigilante after strangers assault her and kill her boyfriend. A mother whose child vanishes in the middle of a transatlantic flight.

Shadow Study

When someone is yelling in a movie, I turn  
the volume down. She was running
in a field, though nothing
was chasing her and there was nowhere to go.
The truth was this: We are each  
running for our lives. Flailing  
our limbs as if split-bodied, ill-mattered,  
tired with the decades but desperate  
enough to run. What form does a void  
take in a field as relentless as stone? I felt most  
myself when I was least loved.

One of TV’s Best Slow-Burn Couples

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Karen Ostergren, a deputy copy chief who has worked at The Atlantic for more than a decade.